NZ cuts short net schooling program

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Notschool, a $NZ2.5 million e-teaching initiative to educate 13
to 16-year-old school drop-outs in their homes over the internet,
is being pulled by the New Zealand Government just months into a
two-year pilot.

It is understood a parting of ways between academics at Anglia
Polytechnic in Britain, which owns the intellectual property for
Notschool, forced the Education Ministry to cut short the
programme.

The scheme was billed by Education Minister Trevor Mallard as a
way of helping children most "at risk", who were not "engaging or
achieving well in mainstream education", to carry on studying
outside the school system.

It was originally envisaged about 100 children in Wellington and
Auckland would take part in the pilot which kicked off in July,
though it is understood fewer than that enrolled.

Notschool children were provided with free Apple computers,
broadband connections and access to online e-learning tools
originally developed by Ultralab, an e-learning business owned by
Anglia Polytechnic.

The Education Ministry has not announced what schooling children
enrolled in Notschool will now receive.

A spokesperson says the ministry does not want to comment until
all parents have been informed of the decision this week.

An education industry source says high-profile Ultralab founder
Professor Stephen Heppell and Anglia Polytechnic are believed to
have had a difference of opinion and says Ultralab has now been
partially disbanded, with the rights to Notschool retained by the
polytechnic.

No one from Ultralab in Britain could be contacted last week. A
polytechnic staffer said everyone was away at a conference.

Nick Billowes, development director of Christchurch e-learning
company Core Education - formerly known as Ultralab South - which
adapted Notschool for use in New Zealand, says "lots has been
learned" from the scheme.

Notschool has provided "good experience from our point of view"
on how to manage e-learning communities that are geographically
dispersed, he says.

Professor Heppell helped found Ultralab South in 2003,
positioning it as the British firm's offshoot in the southern
hemisphere.

It was originally envisaged Ultralab would go on to take a 50
per cent stake in the Christchurch firm, but Mr Billowes says this
will not now happen.

He says the 20-person company will remain wholly-owned for the
time being by the Christchurch Development Corporation.

Mr Billowes says it is business as usual, despite the question
mark now hanging over its one-time would-be British parent.

"For the past two years, since it was established in New
Zealand, Ultralab South has worked in partnership with Ultralab and
has built a strong reputation for developing and supporting the
introduction of new and innovative ways of combining ICT and
education to benefit and encourage learning," he says.

"The rebranding to Core comes at a time when we have reached a
level of maturity and independence and we see this as an
opportunity to expand our e-learning operations, both in New
Zealand and in the wider Asia Pacific region."

The termination of Notschool will not disappoint everyone.

Massey University senior lecturer and "Apple distinguished
educator" Mark Brown - an academic who is critical of the current
emphasis on e-learning and the use of ICT in schools - last year
wrote that Professor Heppell had been described as the "Richard
Branson of the teaching profession" and questioned Ultralab's
political reach.

In a paper published in the New Zealand Journal of Teachers'
Work, he queried whether the e-teaching scheme was aimed simply at
"rehabilitating future workers for the needs of the global
economy".